


Break and Rebuild: Better Than Before

by prototyping



Category: Tales of Vesperia
Genre: Action, Gen, Zagi is still a sick puppy, action fic, fight fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-24 00:11:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2560850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prototyping/pseuds/prototyping
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a loss. He doesn't <i>lose.</i> It's just a reason to fight again. Zagi-centric action fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break and Rebuild: Better Than Before

Each movement, each clash and parry and slide of steel over steel and spark of edge catching edge – each and every one was timed so unnaturally well, executed in the breathtaking nick of time that preceded a narrow sweep or an uplifting slice over skin, occasionally an instant of red that his flitting eyes never failed to catch.  
  
It was the best thing he'd ever experienced – more than killing, more than tearing apart, because the corpse that awaited him this time would be  _worth so much_  – and each time was  _better_  than the last – just the anticipation in itself was rich and fulfilling, so how would that killing blow finally feel?  
  
Zagi was giddy with that same adrenaline rush, now so strangely but delightfully new,  _refreshing_ , even. It empowered him, blinded him to his stressed muscles and the numerous cuts he bore himself –  
  
_– One, two, three –_  
  
He'd counted each one.  
  
_– Eight, nine –_  
  
"TEN!" His blade slit across Yuri's open chest without hindrance, a thin arc of blood trailing the stained tip. A loss of breath, a pained curse – Zagi shifted his grip in between quick heartbeats, his grin wild and enthralled, and brought the sword back the way it had come, tilted at the last second to aim for an identical slice across that  _throat_  this time –  
  
_Inches_  away and he was stopped as Yuri blocked with his own weapon, bracing with both hands.  
  
" _Good,_  Yuri!" Zagi breathed over the rattle of their blades, watching that strained expression. "I don't want anything less than your all!" Yuri's eyes met his and seemed to flash – and suddenly he seized Zagi's wrist, spun, tugged, and brought his sword around in a horizontal slash that Zagi moved to knock aside –  
  
They parted in another clash, sliding back along the ship deck before grinding to synchronized halts. Glancing down, Zagi eyed the similar wound across his own chest, and then raised his grin again as Yuri snapped, "I don't have time for your damn superiority complex!"  
  
"Ten for ten, Yuri!" Zagi called, spinning his dual blades once. His expression flickering, he tensed and added more quietly, almost calmly, "Number eleven'll snap that spine of yours in two." Yuri scowled, but readied his own stance –  _Yes! Anger always makes it more worthwhile!_  – and bolted forward, his sword dragging through the air at his side –  
  
Zagi dashed, faster, eager, bringing both swords up in a swing on his left –  
  
They met again in a bone-shaking clang that ached up to his shoulders – as soon as that contact was made, Zagi released his left-hand blade, letting it clatter uselessly to the side, and in a darting strike crossed arm-over-arm to catch Yuri's throat in merciless fingers. Yuri started, reacted, but he was primarily left-handed and his weapon was on the wrong side – he swung, was parried, shifted his grip and Zagi batted it away entirely –  
  
Throwing all his weight and muscle forward, Zagi drove him backwards and onto the deck with an ecstatic burst of laughter as he knelt over him by straddling his waist, his sword raised high and directed at the space between Yuri's eyes. "Let's see how good you are with your brain smeared across the ground!" An emphatic squeeze on that neck and then Zagi stabbed down –  
  
– But then there was a flash of steel that shouldn't have been there – Yuri, taking up Zagi's discarded weapon, made a sweep at his opponent's face and Zagi barely shifted, throwing off his own aim, and in the same instant both blades cut across each swordsman's right cheek. Yuri's swing backtracked, smashing the hilt into Zagi's temple, and then he twisted and freed himself with a quick knee to Zagi's side that knocked him all the way off.  
  
Zagi was laughing before he'd regained his feet. "You  _really do_  complete me, Yuri," he said shakily, his excitement and pure bliss making his voice unstable. "It almost makes me sad to think the fun'll be over after I tear you apart."  
  
Thumbing the blood from his face, Yuri tossed the borrowed sword behind him, nudged the toe of his boot under his own blade, and kicked it up into his hand. "I'd hate to disappoint." He brandished it before resting it on his shoulder, frowning. "I guess the only way for us both to be happy is if I kill you first."  
  
Zagi's laugh was sharp this time, bordering scornful. "Then let that  _drive_  you! Come at me with everything, like just now! Dedicate yourself to killing me! Only then will someone like you and me truly know what he can do!" He shot across the deck, swinging the moment he was within range. A series of rapid attacks and blocks and then Yuri sidestepped; Zagi dove past him, tumbled, righted himself as he reclaimed his other blade, and threw himself at Yuri again, crossing his swords in a defensive X a second later when Yuri came down on him in a helm-splitting blow.  
  
"Don't compare me to you," he hissed, and kicked Zagi away and into an instant of vulnerability that he quickly exploited, driving his sword forward but only catching the other's side in a shallow cut. Recovering from the spin, Zagi whirled both swords at Yuri's neck with the last of his momentum, missed as Yuri ducked, but rotated his hilts to point his blades downward and  _stabbed_ , missing again by inches and striking nothing but wood.  
  
_I'll kill you I'll kill you I'll kill you I'llkillyou_  – Zagi's words became more and more rushed, more erratic, more slurred even as a thought as the fight raged on, neither of them ever slowing because  _that_  was the wonder of it: the first to slow was the first to die because to fight was to give nothing less than everything and  _that_  was what separated a battle from simple slaughter, however partial Zagi was to both, even if every other fight he'd been in had started as one and then devolved into the other.  
  
But fighting was fighting, killing was killing, and  _this_  was the best of both – fighting for his life, being pressed, being  _cut_  – this was so much more _stimulating,_  all of it, the blood and sweat and adrenaline and pounding pulses, how every movement mattered –  
  
How one movement cost him. Yuri blocked, deflected, dodged, thrust – hot, wet, burning pain erupted across Zagi's stomach and wrapped around his side. His body, his  _damn_  body, hit its knees, its hands, as bright, thick blood gushed from the wound and spattered beneath him, ignoring the furious commands he gave it to  _get up_. Behind him, Yuri spoke. "You're done," he said simply.  
  
Zagi chuckled, laughed, and then swore, finally panting as he flashed a grin over his shoulder, teeth savagely bared like he didn't taste the blood on them or feel it dribbling down his chin. " _Yuri_ ," he rasped, but the twist he attempted was only met with infuriating defiance from his muscles.  
  
_Weak! Weak!_  
  
Damn it!  
  
Too weak, too slow, he should have still been moving – as long as his blastia still worked and he still lived, he should have still been  _moving –_  
  
The blastia. His blastia.  _It_  was too weak.  _He_  was strong –  _he_  couldn't be beaten. This piece of crap –  
  
More power, of course. A better outlet for it. On his body, in his body – whatever it took –  
  
He hated Yuri's cool stare – stone on the surface, but behind it lied a look that Zagi  _knew_ , that he recognized – the look of a killer, a strong killer.  _Zagi's_ look.  
  
They were too equal. Yuri would die.  
  
Zagi would kill him. Whatever, however long it took. He would kill him.


End file.
